


the god of the underworld has let you go from his hand

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [277]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Amputation, Caranthir trying to do everything he can to help, Disfigurement, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Care, Past Torture, Title from a poem by Sandra Simonds, still gets blind-sided from time to time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25544956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: (He says you have a pure heart.)Caranthir, helping.
Relationships: Arien & Caranthir | Morifinwë, Caranthir | Morifinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Caranthir | Morifinwë & Maglor | Makalaurë, Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [277]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	the god of the underworld has let you go from his hand

What it means to love Maitimo now is to wake slumped at his bedside, my mouth sour with morning.

I didn’t want to have leave him to his demons; I never have. Prayer is all very good—I should be dead without it—but there is nothing like presence when the sickness of life runs deep.

 _Here I am_ , I say with my awkward crumpled limbs, with the dry crust at my lips and eyes.

_Here I am, though I cannot take your hand._

_Here I am—_

Though Maglor come late still claims first place.

For Maglor, Maitimo slept. In some ways, that was the root of his nightmares, but I do not think even Fingon blames Maglor for _that_. I don’t know if Maitimo slept again in the night following, for I myself grow heavy-eyed when I worry. Much use am I!

Celegorm would have kept a better watch. But Celegorm is not here. Light enters the room in stages; Fingon unstuffs the window to let in a little fresh air. The room, otherwise, smells of herbs, bone broth, sweat, and a little urine.

I do not like to think of all the ways our brother is weakened and beholden to a doctor’s care—none of us do. Some of us are especially ashamed that his doctor and rescuer both is our cousin. But my shame is a trifle, a secret almost. No one looks upon it with interest; no one considers it binding upon my brothers. And so I have volunteered to launder the soiled sheets daily. Then, Fingon need not improvise with what passes for linens in Mithrim.

He seemed surprised by my offer—Fingon did, I mean, for of course I made it outside of Maitimo’s hearing—but took me into his confidence almost at once.

“He’ll have need of a chamber pot soon, or as near as we can manage. It’s good, you know, that he is eating proper food again. A very promising sign. And we must be careful about elevating him—not to mention getting up and _walking_ , dear me. There’s trouble ahead there…but never you mind, Caranthir.” He checked himself, while I winced to hear the necessity of this forced infancy. “For now,” Fingon added, “doing the washing as often as we can is no small thing. Miles has shared, I trust, his herbal soap concoction?’

“Yes,” I said. “Months ago.” I was still reeling, in my mind, at how quickly I had fallen under Fingon’s charge.

 _No small thing_ , he said. Words unimaginable, once, from his family to mine. But there was truth in it that I could no longer deny.

In the morning, Maitimo looks at me with tired eyes as I clear my own.

“All night?” he asks, in that dry voice to which I will never be used. When we were—home—without the world to threaten us, his illnesses frightened me.

They were nothing to this.

“Yes,” I say. Then, in a poor attempt at humor, “Amras kicks.”

He smiles, perhaps out of obligation. Maglor, who has been doctoring something at the windowsill, carries a steaming cup to the bedside.

“Peppermint tea,” he says, the tenderness in his voice so particular to Maitimo, so unrecognizable as belonging to the Maglor of these many months, that I must hide my gaze from both of them. “Drink before you eat.”

Maitimo says he does not like food any better than tea. Maglor says that he never has. Maitimo closes his eyes while he drinks. Studying Maglor’s face once more, I see strain so apparent that I am jarred, wondering why I thought him changed for the better.

But of course, Fingon told me in the hall yesterday, before we both rushed in together, that Maglor was tending Maedhros in his stead. Perhaps Maglor knows more, now, of Maitimo’s ungodly fate, than anyone but Fingon or the rescued thralls.

They hurt him so very much. They tore my brother from his body, somehow, and they tore his body too.

I want to grind my knuckles into my cheeks at that, to fight my tears with fists.

 _They_ are monsters, yes. But the more I remember of _my_ acts and omissions, of my childish indecision to remain on the far side of a door I rendered closed permanently, by time—the more I remember of our sin-stained path, I know that there is blood on all of our hands.

My mother is gone. My littlest brother is gone.

And what a sorry soul we have all dragged from Maitimo, even if we try to stitch it together again now.

 _Damn us_ , I think, and for once I am glad that Maglor is more than I can ever to be him.

No one looks at my shame.

_Damn us. You should be at home, in our garden. Her garden. I could be there, too, I—_

“Caranthir,” Maglor says, brittle. Repeating himself, I think; that is ordinarily the reason for such impatience in his tone. “Will you fetch us breakfast?”

I confess that I stare at him stupidly for a moment. My first thought—one I am almost angry at myself for thinking—is that Fingon will be here again soon, since he is never far, and he will not want Maglor and me to crowd the bedside forever and a day. It is not a large chamber, this room. Uncle Fingolfin often joins us in the morning; he takes the other chair. Celegorm comes at his own hours, and claims the bench. Gwindor and Estrela are found running errands, speaking to Maitimo in their own language, calling him by another name.

And in the midst of all this that is to come today, Maglor will not even clear out for a bite of breakfast? Thus, I hesitate.

“Caranthir.” More than brittle; aggravated.

I push myself to my feet. For all my conjecture, I have no real argument in the face of his command.

Briefly, then, I leave the murmur of their voices behind.

I gather breakfast quickly. Maglor shall have to be content with what I bring. Tabitha asks me how my brother is, and I know that she is being kind, but I have no answer for her. She will not be offended, I think. She is a woman of no mean understanding.

On my way back down the hall, I encounter another woman whom I trust, though I know her very little. Estrela has a basket of mending in her hands. She nods to me, uneven hair falling forward around her face. I am reminded of Maitimo, and horribly grateful, as I always am when I see her, that they did not take _his_ eyes, _his_ mouth.

These are the small mercies found this side of hell.

We proceed in the same direction—no surprise—but it _is_ a surprise when Maglor meets us halfway, one hand toying nervously with his opposite sleeve.

“What do you here?” I ask.

“Maitimo asked me to fetch him another cushion,” Maglor says, mumbling almost as much as Estrela does. “Oh—you’ve bought breakfast. Well, best eat it in the hall, Caranthir. Fingon is changing his bandages and that’s no sight for you.”

 _Nor for you_ , I might say, but Maglor would not be the only one to hear me. I frown at him instead, and claim the better of the two apples for myself.

As it is, Estrela does not abandon us as swiftly as I expected her to. She is not afraid of Maitimo’s bandages. Nor does he seem to mind that she should be in the room at any hour, from what I can tell. I still excuse myself during Fingon’s more delicate ministrations. It seems the kind thing to do.

I suppose I am also afraid.

Why does she not go to him?

“Beg pardon,” Estrela says, as Maglor stops fidgeting with his clothes and eats. “Will you let me speak?”

“Eh?” Maglor doesn’t look at her. “What’s that?”

“You must try,” she says, her single eye moving between us both. I know this; I look at her. It hurts to see that even her eyelid is missing, to see that the lines forced outwards from her lips were not cut evenly. It hurts to see that they were cut at all. “For his sake. You must try to overcome your disgust for his wounds.”

I expect Maglor to dismiss her outright; Celegorm would. But of course: Maglor is not Celegorm. “I’m not disgusted by him.”

A defense. I cringe to hear it; to hear what I think is a lie.

Estrela shakes her head. “You can’t see him,” she says. “Can you?”

Silence. Silence from my poet brother, who is only silent when his madness overtakes him—or _his_ shame does. Sometimes those two intermingle so closely I cannot tell the difference. Maglor is still guilty over our dealings with Thuringwethil.

Over his choice.

“I was once a beautiful girl,” Estrela says. “I curled my hair. Painted my cheeks a little, though that was not proper. I cared for all the things my childhood gave me, and for new boots and fine dresses, too. You would not have known me. You would not have known me, when Melkor Bauglir came into my house and asked me to marry him.”

My breath catches in my throat. I am cut open, but not as she was. I am cut open by so many fears, and I have never met him. I do not know the face of the man who hurt my brother.

Maglor’s breath still heaves—that being just the word for it. It saws at his breast. “To marry you?”

“I refused,” Estrela says, still more quietly. She lifts one sun-browned hand, gesturing to her face. “Can you not see?”

“I see.” Maglor is speaking through time. The bitten apple lies cratered at his feet. I did not notice it fall.

“You see Bauglir’s anger on my face,” Estrela says. “You see Bauglir’s anger on—Maedhros, too. Thus you must try, for his sake. Remember: the scars are not your brother.”

I have always cried too easily. My brothers have mocked me for it. But not Maitimo. Never Maitimo.

Through the blur of tears, I hear Maglor hiss, “I know him better—”

“Then love him better,” Estrela interrupts, bolder than I have ever heard her speak before. “Love him enough.” Then she nods, deep enough so that it is really a bow, and hurries away.

Not to the sickroom.

I have no time to look with clear eyes and determine whether, in her stark truth-telling, she found herself afraid.

I have no time to say, _Your scars are not you, either._ Surely, that would have been kind—if not _quite_ my place.

Nothing is my place. But Maglor is calling my name.

“Come,” he says, his voice strange. “Maitimo is waiting for us.”

The extra cushion is forgotten. I match his steps; I believe I have to. When we reenter Maitimo’s room, Gwindor has preceded us. Uncle Fingolfin, too. And of course, in my absence, and before Maglor’s, Fingon arrived.

“What of the cushion?” Fingon asks. He is not yet done with his task. I catch a glimpse of angry red flesh, where once the joint of a wrist was knit together, and I avert my sight.

I looked at Estrela, but I cannot—

No, it is Maglor who heard her words. Who is no coward, now, though we have slung that accusation at him, in speech and silence, for all the months we let Maitimo die.

He kneels in my place at the bedside. Maitimo’s face was turned away from Fingon’s work, but now it tilts a little, so that he matches Maglor’s gaze. His face is very white; his throat bobs like a fish in a net.

Whatever Fingon is doing must be hurting him dreadfully. Or maybe everything that Maitimo is now hurts, and we must watch for his pain, so as to understand and help it.

“I forgot it,” Maglor says. “I’ll fetch it later. That will do, Maitimo, won’t it?”

Fingon doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like us here. I sit cross-legged on the cold stone floor. I know Uncle Fingolfin smiles at me, and that Gwindor doesn’t.

I hear Maitimo say, through all the scars that mark him, in a voice half-drowned,

“Yes, Macalaure. Very well.”

I must love him better, even if Maglor loves him first.


End file.
